


Haven

by Drag0nst0rm



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fablehaven Fusion, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:08:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28462158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drag0nst0rm/pseuds/Drag0nst0rm
Summary: Arthur was seventy-five percent sure that Gaius was currently a chicken.
Relationships: Merlin & Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 146





	Haven

**Author's Note:**

> You shouldn't need to have read Fablehaven to understand this, but if you have any questions, feel free to ask!

Arthur was seventy-five percent sure that his great-uncle Gaius was currently a chicken.

This would have been less alarming – not much less alarming, but at least a little – if he currently had said chicken.

Unfortunately, the chicken was back at the house, hopefully safe in the basement and not getting eaten by – goblins or fairies or whatever other insanity had broken through the protections Gaius had called wards.

And even that, as insane as it was, would have been less alarming if Arthur only knew the way back to the house.

But he had been chased off the path through the woods an hour ago, abandoning Gaius’s warnings in the interest of not getting caught and eaten by the horde of nightmares that was chasing him, and now that he had finally dared slow to a walk and catch his breath, he had to admit that he wasn’t sure he could find his way back.

In a normal forest, he would have been able to. His father had taken him out hunting plenty of times, and he had made sure his son knew how to navigate the woods safely.

But these weren’t normal woods, and Arthur already had plenty of evidence that the normal rules didn’t apply.

He was pretty sure that if his father had known what Gaius meant when he said he worked in “animal conservation,” Arthur never would have been sent here for the summer.

Uther was big on hard work and responsibility. He was not big on “frivolous fantasies,” and Arthur wasn’t sure that learning magic was actually real would change his mind on the subject.

Had his mother ever tried to tell him? She must have known; Gaius had said maintaining the preserve here was a family business.

A preserve of magical, fantastical beings, protected from a world of cold iron and the draining unmagic of unbelief, kept from preying on each other – and their caretakers – by a complicated series of magically binding rules.

Rules like: keep to the path.

The forest around him looked fine, safe and normal and sane, but Arthur tread carefully anyway.

He wasn’t sure if the rules still applied now anyway. One of his great-uncle’s assistants, Edwin Muirden, had gone crazy on Midsummer’s Eve, breaking all the rules at the time when they were most vulnerable and then –

The chicken-that-was-probably-Gaius. Running. And Arthur certainly hadn’t _felt_ very safe on that path.

Much like now, when the hair on the back of his neck was beginning to rise.

Everything was quiet. Dangerously quiet.

Arthur very quietly began to back away. Whatever creature lived here that could scare everything else away from its territory, he didn’t want to meet it.

He backed right into something warm.

He spun around, backpedaling as fast as he could.

“Hello,” the boy said brightly.

He looked normal. His ears were a bit big maybe, his form a little gawky, but nothing remarkable. Nothing that would have made him at all suspicious, anywhere but here.

It could just be another assistant of Gaius’s, someone who had been posted out here to keep an eye on something sensitive.

Of course, as Muirden had proven, that didn’t mean he was safe.

On the other hand . . . he glanced up. The sun was high in the sky now, which meant that the milk, which either opened people’s eyes to the truth or gave them the craziest hallucinations Arthur had ever heard of, had worn off.

The boy could be anything.

Anything at all.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you around before,” the boy said, eyes narrowed consideringly, “but you smell like Ygraine used to.” He looked at Arthur expectantly.

Arthur’s breath caught in his chest.

There went the assistant theory.

Rather spectacularly.

“She was my mother,” he choked out before he could consider the wisdom of doing so.

The boy’s face fell. “Oh. I’m sorry. I thought she’d just gone off to get married. I hadn’t thought . . . Well!” He stuck his hand out. “Call me Merlin.”

Arthur wasn’t sure what would happen if he shook that hand.

On the other hand, he wasn’t sure what would happen if the creature took offense if he didn’t.

“I’ve blood on my hands,” he said apologetically.

Merlin looked down. “Quite literally. Oh, dear. Those look like they need a good cleaning and probably some bandages. We need to get you back to the house.”

Arthur stiffened.

“ . . . or not. Not is fine too! Although oddly enough, it does feel like I could just walk straight to the yard today – I felt something starnge with the boundaries earlier, that’s why I was away from home – and oh. Not again.” He’d started pacing in the middle of his talk, but he came to a stop abruptly when he reached his conclusion.

“Not again what?” Arthur asked warily. He eyed a conveniently fallen branch that wasn’t too far away, just in case.

“Someone’s trying to overthrow the preserve again, aren’t they? I swear, lately it feels like this happens every other week, and every time, _every time,_ it’s all, ‘Oh, Emrys, won’t you join us? A dragon would make everything so much easier – “

Arthur froze. “You’re a _dragon?”_ He could buy glamour hiding a lot, but surely even it couldn’t make a full-fledged dragon look like a mildly awkward teenage boy.

“I’m a wizard,” Merlin corrected, “which is what happens when a dragon decides to stay permanently in their avatar form so that they can access higher forms of magic. Unfortunately, certain people haven’t gotten the message about the permanent aspect of it.”

“You’re the . . . avatar of a dragon.”

“Yes, yes, I know, I really should be at one of the dragon sanctuaries, but all the I’s are crossed and t’s dotted, and you really don’t need to go check, I promise.” He paused. “I don’t suppose you could forget to tell Gaius I said that?”

“I think Gaius is currently a chicken,” Arthur said. He wasn’t . . . entirely certain he completely understood what was going on, but at least that might reassure Merlin-or-Emrys-or-whoever-he-was that his secrets were in no danger of being spilled by Arthur to anyone that mattered.

“I can fix that!” Merlin said brightly. “After we fix up your hands. Let me see, let me see – “

He reached for Arthur’s arm. 

Arthur took a quick step back. “Gaius warned me not to trust anyone in the woods.”

“Ah.” Merlin chewed on his bottom lip. “That’s a good policy. Generally. But I’m harmless, I promise!” He smiled hopefully.

Somehow, seeing his teeth just made Arthur wonder how big they were when Merlin actually looked like a dragon.

“Mostly harmless? More harmless than whatever is currently rampaging through your house?” Merlin deflated slowly through this speech until he looked more pathetic than dangerous. “Look, I just want to sleep in peace by my lake, alright? And I can’t do that until all the boundaries are back up so no one can bother me who isn’t supposed to. And I like Gaius. I don’t want him to be a chicken.” He paused for a moment to consider things. “Also,” he added, “unless you have a much better plan than it looks like you have, I’m probably the only chance you’ve got.”

Unfortunately, he was right.

“Fine,” Arthur said, throwing his hands up. “Fine! But if you make one wrong move, I’m hitting you with this.” So saying, he swooped down and grabbed the tree branch. It had a comforting heft to it.

Merlin eyed it. “That’s a tree branch,” he pointed out. “You do know that I’ve survived attacks from five of the six fabled blades, don’t you?”

Arthur gritted his teeth. “Of course,” he lied, “but the tree branch will still hurt.”

“As long as that’s settled!” Merlin said with cheer that felt entirely inappropriate to the situation. “Let me lead you back to the path then, and you can fill me on how Gaius got turned into a chicken.”

This was quite possibly the worst idea Arthur had ever had. He could already imagine the raised eyebrow Gaius would give him when he told him this story.

But he was out of other ideas, and there was just something about Merlin that made him seem trustworthy, so Arthur secured his grip on the tree branch and followed after him.

It was entirely possible that the something in question was magic designed to lure him to his doom, but until that happened, he would hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

Even if his best preparation was currently a stick.


End file.
